Today was my boss Jack Welch’s last day at Relief International. He’s being replaced by Jennifer Fish, the new Country Director for Bangladesh.

Jack is going to back to New York on Satureday with his wife and daughters. I’ll miss him terribly.

We apologize for the inconvenience, but Google Earth has crashed. This is a bug in the program, and should never happen under normal circumstances.

It was a great to see the native port of Google Earth for Linux, which was released 2 weeks ago. I downloaded it last week, but installed it today on my Mandriva box. I ran it, but it crashed.

I retried, but it kept on dying at random intervals. It lasted from 30 seconds to 15 minutes, while showing me the sneak peak of it’s capabilities. I zoomed on Buriganga river and saw some ships. The national stadium at Gulistan looked remarkable too.

I’m sure that the random crashes has something to do with my X server configuration, but right now I’m feeling too lazy to search for a fix. Google demanded that it works under Fedora 5 and Ubuntu 5.10, but I didn’t bother to check. I’ll patiently wait till the stable version of Google Earth 4 is out!

I’ve always used original HP toners for my printer, and as a token of appreciation, they have sent me this little gift:

Check out HP’s Check Genuine website to know more about this promotion — valid only for south Asian residents.

RFC or Request For Comments are informational or experimental documents, often being the protocol standards that make computer networks and the Internet work. Written by professors and elite scholars, most of the RFCs can bore people to death.

However, the April fool version of the RFCs are published just for fun and shouldn’t be taken seriously. After reading these hilarious RFCs, who’ll say that computer engineers aren’t any fun?

I’ve compiled a list of funny April fool RFCs, and you can read them here for a good laugh!

I finally got myself a LCD monitor! It’s a Philips 17″ TFT LCD monitor and has built-in speakers, an USB 2.0 port for using peripheral devices, accepts both VGA (analog D-sub) and DVI-D (digital) signals, and is very easy to swivel and tilt. But what impressed me the most is it’s 8 ms response time! Isn’t that outstanding?Wondering what response time is and why it is important? Well, it’s the period of time required for a liquid crystal cell to go from active (black) to inactive (white) and back to active (black) again, and it’s measured in milliseconds. Faster is better: lower response time means faster transitions, and therefore, results in fewer visible image artifacts in the display of transition of text and graphics. Lower response time also resolves ghosting problems.

More details about the monitor (I’m sure you’ll never need them!):

Picture/Display
LCD panel type : 1280 x 1024 pixels, Anti-glare polarizer, RGB vertical stripe
Panel Size : 17″/ 43 cm
Effective viewing area : 337.9 x 270.3 mm
Pixel pitch : 0.264 x 0.264 mm
Brightness (nits) : 250 nit
Contrast ratio (typical) : 500:1
Display colors : 16.2 M
Viewing angle : – C/R > 5
Viewing angle (horizontal) : 160 degree
Viewing angle (vertical) : 155 degree
Response time (typical) : 8 ms
White Chromaticity, 6500K : x = 0.313 / y = 0.329
White Chromaticity, 9300K : x = 0.283 / y = 0.297
Maximum Resolution : 1280 x 1024 @ 75 Hz
Recommended Resolution : 1280 x 1024 @ 60 Hz
Factory Preset Modes : 15 modes
User definable modes : 50 modes
Video Dot Rate : 140 MHz
Horizontal Scanning Frequency : 30 – 83 kHz
Vertical Scanning Frequency : 56 – 76 Hz
sRGB : Yes

Connectivity
Signal Input : Analog (VGA), DVI-D, PC Audio in
Audio output : Stereo Audio (3.5 mm jack) 1x
USB : USB 2.0
Video Sync Input Signal : Composite Sync, Separate Sync, Sync on Green

Convenience
Built-in Audio: 2 W RMS x 2 Stereo Speakers
Convenience Enhancements : On-screen Display, SmartManage enabled
Monitor Controls : Auto, Brightness Control, Left/Right, Menu (OK), Power On/Off, Up/Down, Volume control
OSD Languages : English, French, German, Italian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish
Other convenience : Kensington lock compatible, FlexiHolder
Plug & Play Compatibility : DDC/CI, sRGB, Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Regulatory Approvals : CE Mark, E2000, EMC, Energy Star, FCC-B, UL, CSA, SEMKO, TCO ’03, TÜV/GS, TÜV Ergo
Swivel : +/- 125°
Tilt : -5° to 25°
VESA Mount : 100 x 100 mm

Accessories
Included Accessories : AC Power Cord, Audio Cable, USB cable, VGA cable
Optional accessories : Super Ergo Base
User Manual : Yes

Dimensions
Depth (with base) : 210 mm
Height (with base) : 377 mm
Width (with base) : 375 mm
Height adjustment range : 70 mm
MTBF : 50,000 hrs
Relative Humidity : 20% – 80%
Temperature range (operation) : 5°C to 40°C
Temperature range (storage) : -20°C to 60°C
Weight : 4.8 kg

Power
Complies with : E2000, Energy Star, NUTEK
Consumption : 33W (Typical)
Off Mode : < 1 W
Power LED indicator : Operation – green, Stand by/sleep – Amber
Power supply : Built-in, 100-240VAC, 50/60Hz

I just patched my kernel to version 2.6.17, which was released this morning and codenamed “Crazed Snow-Weasel”. Not much pain while patching.

Just a little stat on this production release:

• 652 files and 416664 lines has been added
• 632 files and 507448 lines has been changed
• 350 files and 308710 lines has been deleted

Get the patch from Kernel.org’s FTP or HTTP server.